


Such Spirit Through the Years

by Overnighter



Category: Bandom, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Family Drama, First Kiss, Friendship, Gen, Holidays, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-22
Updated: 2012-10-22
Packaged: 2017-11-16 20:46:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/543659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Overnighter/pseuds/Overnighter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brendon and his band, through the years. Or sometimes, love is friendship. And sometimes love is love. And sometimes, it's everything all at once.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Such Spirit Through the Years

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jukeboxghost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jukeboxghost/gifts).



The first time that Brendon meets Spencer and Ryan, he assumes it’s the last. He’s too loud, and he knocks one of the pictures right off the wall of Spencer’s grandmother’s house when he spreads his arms out to explain the sheer awesomeness of the diminished seventh, and even though he saw Ross crack a smile at his Golem impression, he assumes he’s Too Much, as usual, and that he’ll never hear from them again. 

So when Brent meets him before homeroom the next morning – and seriously, when has Brent ever been on time for homeroom, ever? – and even his bad bangs can’t quite hide his wide smile, Brendon’s half-looking for Ashton Kutcher and a couple of skinny, laughing band boys. 

“Dude, they loved you! You’re in,” Brent says, and Brendon has to remind himself – forcefully – that Not Everyone Likes Physical Affection, Brendon, or so claims the vice-principal, before he flings himself at Brent. It doesn’t matter anyway, because Brent is embracing him, laughing. 

“I knew they’d love you. You’re, like, awesome. And totally cool.” 

No one in the history of the universe has ever put the words “Brendon Urie” and “cool” in the same sentence, unless it was his mother asking if it was cool enough for Brendon to need a sweater outside. He wants to bounce up on his toes in his excitement, but he doesn’t think that Brent – who has an actual girlfriend, and people who want to sit with him at lunch – will appreciate it. Brent does a dorky little victory shuffle, though, and high-fives Brendon before unwrapping the napkin in his hand. 

“I got here so early I didn’t even have breakfast,” he says, still grinning, and unearths a giant bagel smothered in what looks like crunchy peanut butter. “Want half?” 

Brendon has already had a nutritionally appropriate and medically vetted breakfast at home, and he’s pretty sure that the sugar from the honey on top of the peanut butter is going to make him twitch all day, but he enjoys every disgusting bite on his way to his first class.

*

Brendon hates every single thing about his apartment – the way the front door is warped so badly that he can’t open it without pushing against it with his shoulder; the way the tiles in the bathroom are all different shades of puke green, but in no discernible pattern; the way that the air conditioning only works when it’s under eighty degrees. But what he hates more than anything is that it’s not – it will never be – anything like home. He even tried using the same detergent he knows his mom uses in the big, industrial washer in the basement, but it didn’t make a difference.

He’s half-asleep on the couch that he and Ryan and Spencer found on the curb a few blocks away – it smells sort of funny, but it’s comfortable as hell, better than his bed – when he hears the heavy pounding on the front door. 

He knows even before he gets there that it’s Ryan. Ryan looks like a stiff wind could blow him over, but he’s got some wicked arm strength. Besides, Spencer always knocks using the opening rhythm from Killer Queen and Brent never comes over without calling. Every other person in Brendon’s life is currently not speaking to him, so it makes eliminating the possibilities a lot easier. 

He opens the door, tugging so hard that it bangs into the wall in the hallway – leaving yet another mark he knows will be coming out of his outrageous security deposit. Ryan shoulders past him without a word, his eyes lined and his lips tight and his messenger bag over his chest. Brendon knows the signs by now, knows it’s not a good night. 

“You’re not doing anything, right?” 

Ryan says it like it’s not actually a question. It’s not, really. Brendon should be writing a stupid English paper, but he just worked six hours on top of his regular school day, and he’s got to be up to open the Shack before dawn tomorrow, so mostly he’s been lying on the couch, staring at the walls. 

“No,” he says, “Are you?” 

Ryan holds up a DVD case without looking over at him. 

“A Charlie Brown Christmas? You brought over A Charlie Brown Christmas? What happen, everyone at Spencer’s catch the death flu?” 

Ryan waves his hand in a way that Brendon recognizes is shorthand for _I don’t want to talk about it_ , and pops the DVD into the little combo tv that was his official housewarming gift from, well, everyone that wasn’t related to Brendon, thank God. It was great because Brendon did not currently make enough money to have cable. Or lights, really, but at least he was working on that. 

“I thought that you watched this every year with the Smiths?” he says softly, his voice rising like it's a question, even though it isn’t one. 

“Did you eat?” Ryan demands in return, sidestepping the issue entirely. Brendon shakes his head; just the idea of trying to find a clean plate in his disaster of a kitchen exhausts him. 

“There's some ramen, I think. I saw going to boil some water, eventually. When I sat down to do some homework.” 

Ryan nudges him towards the couch before Brendon even realizes it and says “Study,” in as stern a voice as he can manage, which is to say not very stern at all. Still, Brendon goes without question, and opens up his copy of The Great Gatsby.

Five minutes later, Ryan comes out of the kitchen area with two mugs and does a double take. 

“Are you just reading that now? You don’t have a paper or anything, do you?”

Brendon does, in fact, have a paper, and he wishes that Ryan would shut up about it, except that Ryan takes the book out of his hands and closes it, and hands him a mug of Top Ramen instead. 

“Here, you can eat while we watch TV,” he says, glancing down at Brendon’s book bag. Brendon sits cross-legged on the couch and lets the cup warm his hands before dropping it on the piece of plywood he’s currently using as a coffee table and reaching for the afghan behind him. 

“I didn’t have time to read it,” Brendon says, and it’s mostly true, even if Ryan sighs at him. 

“Do you solemnly swear to read The Great Gatsby at some point, like, on our first tour or whatever?” Ryan asks out of the blue. “It’s a classic for a reason.” 

Brendon nods, and reaches for his mug of soup. He’s long since learned not to question Ryan’s non sequiturs. 

Ryan smiles a little at him, and fishes around in the couch cushions for the remote. 

“Good. Because I got an A on that paper my junior year, and I still have a copy on my hard drive.” 

Brendon kind of wants to kiss him, but instead he just tosses a corner of the afghan over so that Ryan can join him on the couch, both of them sitting cross-legged with their knees touching under the blanket. The ramen is too hot and too salty, but as soon as Brendon smelled food his stomach started growling, so he eats without complaint. 

When Charlie Brown gets picked to be the director of the Christmas pageant, Ryan stares at the screen, carefully not looking at Brendon. 

“I had a big fight with my dad before I went over to Spence’s tonight and I just – I couldn’t deal with the hetero-normative happy family, you know?” 

Brendon is aware that Ryan is not actually looking for his agreement, so he waits a moment, until the kids are skating on the pond, and says instead, 

“My mom called yesterday and said that I could come home if I went back to church. I could even keep doing the band thing, but I have to talk to the Bishop about a mission.” 

Brendon doesn’t think Ryan will acknowledge it, but Ryan always surprises him. 

“Are you going to – I mean, maybe you should...” he trails off. Brendon knows that all of the guys feel bad about his family drama, but he thinks Ryan might be the only one who sort of understands how torn Brendon feels. 

“No,” he says softly, “No, I don’t think so. I think – I think I’m just done.” 

“Oh,” Ryan says, and neither of them have torn their eyes away from the screen, “Oh, good.” 

They watch in silence, but when they finish their soup, Ryan deposits the mugs on the table and rearranges himself so that Brendon is lying with his head on Ryan’s bony lap. 

“I always wanted a beagle,” he says, finally breaking the silence as Linus explains the true meaning of Christmas. “Like Snoopy.” 

Brendon snorts a little into Ryan's thigh, half-asleep and punch-drunk with exhaustion. 

“You know they don’t actually do the dance,” he murmurs, and he hears Ryan sigh above him. 

“I know,” Ryan says mournfully. “Life is so unfair.”

*

It’s right before sound check when Kara calls and says she can’t get a babysitter. His parents didn’t even bother, just let her be the one to tell him that no one in his family is going to be here for his first headlining tour in his hometown.

He sort of wants to throw his phone at the wall, but that won’t do anything except break the phone, and make him feel worse about everything when he realizes that he’s exactly the kind of spoiled-rotten rock star that his mother warned him he’d become. At least he’s learned something about himself over the years. 

He goes out to the stage, only a few minutes late. Spencer is messing with is kit, but he looks up, brows drawing together as Brendon enters behind him. 

“No go?” he mouths, and when Brendon shakes his head he makes a fiercely irritated face that is the first thing that makes Brendon want to laugh in a while. It’s the same complicated face he makes when Ryan starts talking about his father – like he’s angry enough to say things that he knows he can’t, because family is family – and it makes Brendon feel a little warmer to know that he’s under its protection, too. 

Ryan’s not looking at him at all, kneeling in front of his speaker with his guitar across his lap, but even from upstage Brendon can see how tightly his hands are wrapped around its neck, how carefully blank his face is. Brendon feels worse, knowing that this is Ryan’s first show at home, too, without anyone in the audience. 

Jon’s sitting at the piano, noodling up and down the keys when Brendon approaches. 

“Hey, you look like somebody shot your dog. Don’t you love hometown shows?” he asks, and Brendon tries not to think about all the people that showed up in Chicago – Jon’s parents and his brothers and their significant others and seemingly every single person he went to high school and college with. Jon’s mom brought Jon’s favorite peanut butter cookies, but also snickerdoodles for Ryan and oatmeal raisin for Brendon and Spencer, and Jon’s dad kept grabbing all of their shoulders – not just Jon’s – and rubbing them, saying, “That was something else, wasn’t it? Something else.” 

“Not really,” he says before thinking, and Jon doesn’t lift his hands from the keys, but he does start playing a simple melody – an old blues line – and slides over so that Brendon can sit on the bench beside him. “My family can’t come.” 

He doesn’t mean to sound like a whiny toddler, but he knows he does. Jon just makes a scrunchy face, though, and goes back to his melody. 

“That sucks,” he says softly. “I’m sorry.” 

He doesn’t say anything else, just switches the blues line to something different, a little rockabilly. He starts playing it in earnest, singing a little bit under his breath.

“There’s a food goin’ ‘round that’s a sticky, sticky goo...” 

Somewhere behind him, he hears Spencer pick up a tambourine – voluntarily – playing a soft counterpoint to Jon’s driving rhythm, and a few minutes later he hears Ryan’s guitar join in, a little late and a little hesitant. Jon raises his voice, singing into the microphone for the first time, and Ryan and Spencer join him on the chorus, a little out of tune but with a decent harmony. 

Every time Jon jumps an eighth, he elbows Brendon in the stomach, a little nudge, until Brendon starts singing along – first half-heartedly, then leaning over to join Jon at the mike on the chorus. He sees two of the techs doing a bump and grind on the edge of the stage and stands up, still singing, to join them, until they’re all singing, doing a little three-man takeoff on their choreography for “These Tables” as they shimmy between Ryan and Jon, still at the piano. By the time they’re done, he’s breathless and sweating, but they’re all smiling at each other. 

That night, looking out over a sea of faces he doesn’t recognize, Brendon has a moment of panic when he realizes that if his family had come, they would have seen him stalking Ryan around the stage and groping his own crotch, and for a second – just a second – he freezes before the next song begins, but then he hears that same rockabilly beat from that afternoon on Jon’s bass, woven expertly under his improvised stage banter, and suddenly he can breathe again. 

When they get off after two encores, Spencer’s whole family is backstage, grinning madly. By the time Brendon comes back from the shower, they’re trying to persuade Jon to join them for dinner at the casino’s buffet, and as soon as Ginger sees him, she calls out, “Brendon’s going to come. Right, Brendon?”

She sticks her tongue out as Spencer walks off for his own shower, muttering “How come I _never_ get to be the favorite?” but he’s still smiling, so Brendon figures they’re just fooling around, and it’s okay. He feels a heavy weight on his shoulders and realizes that Jon’s crept behind him, his calloused hands rubbing tension out of Brendon's neck with brisk, sure strokes. 

“We would, but Brendon’s promised me a super double-secret tour of the Strip. I want to take some pictures, and he’s going to be my native guide.” 

Brendon has promised no such thing, but suddenly it sounds so much better than cutting into Spencer’s – and Ryan’s – one night with the Smiths, making awkward conversation and trying not to explain where his parents were yet again. Ginger seems to understand, though, because she just comes over and ruffles Brendon’s still-wet head. 

“Well, since it’s for the art, I guess I’ll let you out of it. But don’t think that means you can sneak out of our traditional First-Night-After-Tour dinner,” she says sternly. Brendon loves that she’s lived in Vegas long enough that she can refer to the fact that they’ve done it once before as “tradition” with a straight face. 

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he says, and leans back against Jon’s chest without thinking twice about it.

*

It’s quieter than Brendon thought it would be, once they get home from this leg of the tour. Shane and Regan really only live about three blocks away, but Brendon’s never quite gotten the hang of living all alone. Plus, he got in too late last night to get Bogart back from them, so there’s not even the irregular jangle of his tags as he tears through the house from one imaginary foe to the other.

He’s sitting on the couch just outside of their practice space, aimlessly flipping through channels and wondering whether there's anything in the fridge besides the milk he forgot to throw away at the start of the tour and some lemon juice in one of those squeezy bottles when he hears the front door open. 

“Shane?” he calls out, because Shane still as a key and – more importantly – an editing bay here in the house, so it’s not weird that he’d be coming and going. 

There’s just silence, though, and Brendon is starting to cast about for something – anything – that’s not a guitar to hit a robber over the head with when Spencer shows up, clutching a giant brown bag. He’s cut his hair and trimmed his beard since Brendon saw him three – no, four – days ago. 

“Hey,” he says, and sort of waves sheepishly, which is weird because Spencer never does anything sheepishly. 

Brendon waves back and throws his legs onto the floor to make room for Spencer to sit. 

“Wait a minute, you’re that guy – the one from – the guy I shared twenty feet of living space with all summer, right?” he says, but he’s already crowding into Spencer’s space to give him a one-armed hug. Whatever he’s got in the bag smells really, really good. 

“I know, I know,” Spencer says, and he’s only half-laughing. “I know I’m a freak. It’s just – I didn’t think that it would be so quiet.” 

Haley called and broke up with Spencer during the first leg of their last tour, and by the time they got back to Las Vegas, every trace of her had been obliterated from Spencer’s house. Even the dog door was boarded up, because Haley won custody of the dogs at some point, and Brendon and Ryan stood in the doorway, trying not to look quite as shell-shocked as Spencer did. 

“Tell me about it,” he laughs quietly, even though it’s not the same. Even though he and Shane are still friends, and never really did more than fool around anyway. 

Spencer shrugs and opens the bag. 

“I brought lunch. Thai. I figured it was the least I could do.” 

Spencer unpacks about fifteen boxes, which is how Brendon ends up with a plate mounded with more food than he probably has in every kitchen cabinet combined. He’s eating enthusiastically, half-watching the Iron Chef and half-making up his own subtitles for the Japanese judges when he feels Spencer’s finger ghost over his upper lip. 

He jumps back, startled, and when he looks over Spencer is sitting there as if frozen, hand still up at the height of Brendon’s lips. 

“Sorry, sorry. You had a piece of – peanut or something – from the pad Thai on your lip.” 

His voice is steady and even, but he’s blushing and Spencer never, ever blushes unless... 

“Wait, what?” Brendon blurts, and now Spencer startles, looking down at his still-frozen hand. 

“Never mind,” Spencer says softly, then he reaches for Brendon’s face and pulls him in close, his lips closing over Brendon’s, “I’ll get it.” 

Spencer is a very good kisser, Brendon realizes. That’s why it takes him a few minutes to realize just what’s happening. Spencer licks his tongue along Brendon’s lip, silently begging entrance, and Brendon just lets himself be kissed for a moment before he pushes Spencer back, just a little, hands still on his arms. 

“Oh, God. Oh, God. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Bren,” he says, and tries to pull his hand back, get up from the couch. Brendon shakes his head and holds on. 

“Don’t. Don’t be – don’t be sorry, but what is this? Are you – I don’t want to be your rebound girl,” he says, which is odd, because Brendon usually loves being that girl – or guy, actually – the one that gets all the no-strings-attached sex and a guaranteed out when the girl comes to her senses a few months later, but this is Spencer, not some random scene queen. 

“You’re not,” Spencer whispers, “Oh, God, Bren. You’re really, really not.”

Brendon drops his hand, and Spencer scoots back along the couch, but doesn’t try anything again. 

Brendon doesn’t think that he’s ever heard anyone say his name with such naked want and affection. He loses track of his breathing for a minute, then grins over at where Spencer is sitting, hands in his lap, looking miserable. 

“Hey,” he says, and he can see the instant that Spencer gets it, because his smile starts out small, but comes on strong. “Hey, you’ve got a little bit of something right there in the corner of your mouth.” 

He leans over and closes the distance between them, his hands flat on the couch cushion between them before he tilts his heads and licks at the corner of Spencer’s wide-open mouth. 

“This won’t fuck up the band, right?” Brendon whispers against Spencer’s cheek, and Spencer shakes his head. 

“I won’t – we won’t let it,” Spencer says softly, and reaches out to cover Brendon’s hands with his. 

Brendon leans in again, and this time, Spencer meets him halfway.

**Author's Note:**

> Based on Advent Challenge prompts. Jukeboxghost's prompt was "peanuts."


End file.
